1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a door structure of a microwave oven usable as a pizza oven and a structure of a door handle thereof, and, more particularly, to a door structure of a microwave oven usable as a pizza oven, in which a pan, on which a pizza is to be cooked, and a door are integral with each other, and the door is hingable about one side of the door, so that the pan is ejected from a cooking chamber when the door hinges to open the cooking chamber, and a handle structure used in the door structure, which not only allows the user to stably take a cooked pizza out of the cooking chamber, thereby achieving an improvement in convenience, but also provides a reliable seal effect between the door and the cooking chamber, thereby preventing heat from being leaked from the cooking chamber, and thus, achieving an improvement in cooking performance.
2. The Relevant Technology
Microwave ovens are well known. Microwave ovens are kitchen appliances which irradiate microwaves emitted from a magnetron onto food to be cooked, and thus, heat both the outside and inside of the food. Accordingly, such microwave ovens exhibit a high thermal efficiency, so that they can greatly reduce the time taken to cook food, can reduce loss of nutritive elements generated during operations of cooking, thawing, and heating food, and can directly cook food in a state in which the food is stored in a container. By virtue of such advantages, the microwave oven has been widely used.
Since the above-mentioned microwave oven is used to simply heat food, the microwave oven is equipped with only one cooking chamber to heat food. However, new microwave ovens have recently been developed which include a separate pizza cooking chamber to heat pizza, in particular, frozen pizza. Such a microwave oven is illustrated in FIG. 1.
FIG. 1 illustrates a perspective view schematically illustrating a conventional microwave oven, which is usable as a pizza oven. As shown in FIG. 1, the microwave oven, which is designated by reference numeral 1, includes an oven body defined with a cooking chamber 2 and an electric device installation chamber (not shown). A pizza cooking chamber 6 is defined in an upper portion of the cooking chamber 2.
A control panel 10 is arranged at one side of the oven body, for example, the front side of the oven body, as in the illustrated case. The control panel 10 includes a key panel 12 to be used to operate the microwave oven to cook pizza in the pizza cooking chamber 6 (hereinafter, this key panel is referred to as a “pizza key panel”), and a key panel 14 to be used to operate the microwave oven to cook general food other than pizza in the cooking chamber 2 (hereinafter, this key pad is referred to as a “cooking key panel”).
Upper and lower heaters 20 are fixedly mounted to the top and bottom of the pizza cooking chamber 6 in the interior of the pizza cooking chamber 6, respectively. Guide members 7 are mounted to opposite side walls of the oven body defining opposite lateral sides of the pizza cooking chamber 6 to guide movement of a pizza tray 40 to be described hereinafter, respectively.
A pizza oven door 30 is slidably mounted to the oven body to open/close the pizza cooking chamber 6. The pizza tray 40, on which a pizza to be cooked will be laid, is fixedly mounted to an inner surface (back surface) of the pizza oven door 30 to extend toward the interior of the pizza cooking chamber 6. A handle 32 is fixedly attached to an outer surface (front surface) of the pizza oven door 30.
The pizza laid on the pizza tray 40 is heated by heat transferred thereto from the upper and lower heaters 20.
The upper and lower heaters 20 are electrically connected to the pizza key panel 12 so that the upper and lower heaters 20 are operated in accordance with operation of the pizza key panel 12 to generate heat, thereby causing the pizza laid on the pizza tray 40 to be cooked.
When it is desired to cook a pizza in the microwave oven 1, which is usable as a pizza oven in accordance with the above-mentioned configuration, the user first lays the pizza on the pizza tray 40. Thereafter, the user couples the pizza oven door 30 to the pizza cooking chamber 6, and then pushes the pizza oven door 30 to move the pizza tray 40 into the pizza cooking chamber 6 along the guide members 7, and thus, to close the pizza cooking chamber 6.
When the user then operates the pizza key panel 6 included in the control panel 10, the upper and lower heaters 20 are operated to generate heat, so that the pizza received in the pizza cooking chamber 6 is cooked by the generated heat.
After completion of the cooking of the pizza, the user pulls the pizza oven door 30 while grasping the handle 32, to take the cooked pizza out of the pizza cooking chamber 6.
In order to take the cooked pizza out of the microwave oven, the user must open the pizza oven door 30, and then eject the pan, on which the pizza is laid, using a separate ejection tool, in a state of wearing hot gloves. However, such an operation is inconvenient. That is, inconvenience is caused when the user ejects the pan from the pizza cooking chamber because he must open the pizza oven door 30 using one hand, and perform the ejection of the pan using the grasping tool while grasping the ejection tool by the other hand. Furthermore, there is a problem in that the user may burn himself if carelessly handling the pan.
Meanwhile, the handle 32, which may have various shapes, is attached to the pizza oven door 30. However, the handle 32 may obstruct movement of the user around the microwave oven when the microwave oven is not in use, because the handle is typically fixed to the front side of the pizza oven door 30 in a protruded state.
Furthermore, the pizza oven door 30 is slidably movable with respect to the pizza cooking chamber 6 to open/close the pizza cooking chamber 6. When it is desired to completely open the pizza cooking chamber 5, the user must completely separate the pizza oven door 30 from the pizza cooking chamber 6, using the handle 32. Where the user performs the separation of the pizza oven door 30 from the pizza cooking chamber 6 while grasping only the handle 32, the pizza oven door 30 may be rendered to be rearwardly inclined due to the weight of the pizza oven door 30, without being maintained in a horizontal state. As a result, a considerable force is required to horizontally eject the pizza tray 40. In particular, most women cannot firmly maintain the pizza oven door 30 in a horizontal state, so that the pizza may be dropped from the pizza tray 40. In this case, a dangerous situation may occur because the user must hold the hot pizza tray to prevent the pizza from being dropped. Thus, the conventional pizza oven door has a problem in that the opening and closing operations thereof are unstable and inconvenient.
Moreover, the center of gravity of the pizza oven door 30 including the pizza tray 40 is positioned at a position rearwardly spaced apart from the pizza oven door 30. For this reason, the handle 32 may be broken during the ejection of the pizza oven door 30 unless the handle 32 has a sufficient strength.
Since the conventional pizza oven door 30 is movable with respect to the pizza cooking chamber 6 in a general sliding manner, the pizza cooking chamber 6 may be incompletely sealed by the pizza oven door 30, so that the thermal energy of high-temperature heat generated from the upper and lower heaters 20 may be leaked during the procedure of cooking the pizza by the heat from the upper and lower heaters 20. As a result, a degradation in cooking performance occurs. In addition, there is a problem in that odor generated during the pizza cooking operation may be severely leaked